Sauron Did Nothing Wrong
by Arawndil
Summary: After Sauron is defeated, the Valar put him on trial to answer for his crimes. Still convinced that he was in the right, he is rescued by an unlikely savior with an impossible plan. Contains Silmarillion elements. Prologue to the Reforged series.


**Sauron Did Nothing Wrong**

A/N Some terminology for the unfamiliar:

 **Arda** : Tolkien's world, upon which Middle-Earth is a continent

 **Valar** : Great spirits/Archangels. They function as a pantheon, but are not all-powerful and answer to The One, who created them along with Men and Elves.

 **Maiar** : Lesser spirits/Angels. Sauron is one of these, as are the five Wizards (Istari) and the Balrogs.

 **Melkor** : "He Who Arises In Might." The elves call him Morgoth. The 'strongest' of the Valar with a share in the powers of all the others, he went rogue and became the first Dark Lord. Basically Satan.

Disclaimer: Arda and all of its inhabitants are under the dominion of the Tolkien Estate and Eru Illuvatar.

"I did nothing wrong," Sauron stated evenly.

A chorus of sighs and groans arose from the fourteen thrones encircling him. His former mentor Aule the Smith covered his face with a huge calloused hand, Nienna the Mourner quietly opened the floodgates on another round of dignified tears, while Tulkas the Wrestler and Orome the Hunter looked ready to break his spine and be done with it. Only Namo the Judge was unmoved, watching him impassively as ever next to his brother Manwe, the Elder King and Father's viceroy within Arda, the world.

Sauron rolled his eyes at the Valar's dramatics and idly jangled the chains binding his wrists and ankles. The very same chains that had bound his former master Melkor, their brother, when he had stood judgement here in Mahanaxar, the Ring of Doom, shortly before his siblings had banished him from Arda and into the Void.

 _A fate I am obviously to share_ , he thought with annoyance, not so much with his inevitable and long accepted fate as with the Valar's insistence in conducting this sham of a trial. After his Ring had been destroyed and he had drifted in the wind, formless and powerless, he had assumed that the Powers of the West would either leave him to gnaw harmlessly on his failures for eternity or take their standard approach and throw whoever didn't agree with them off the edge of the universe.

It seemed, however, that they intended to rub it in his face first.

"You actually believe that, don't you?" Vaire the Weaver asked softly, her face burdened by incredulity and…was that pity?

Sauron considered how to respond. Vaire recorded the history of Arda; she was privy to many hidden details and circumstances surrounding the events that transpired in Middle-earth and elsewhere which escaped others. She knew that history was written by the victors; her husband Namo often called on her help when judging the souls of the dead, especially those defamed by the living. Perhaps she might have enough perspective to understand why he had been in the right. If Sauron was going to be thrown out the Doors of Night, he at least wanted to set the record straight.

"Of course. Everything I have done has been for the good of Arda and Father's Children."

The Valar sat still as statues, but sounds of outrage arose from scores of his fellow Maiar gathered at the feet of the great thrones. Sauron allowed himself a tiny, contemptuous smirk at his pathetic kin. Sycophants and toadies, content to blindly follow the instructions of their elder brethren and beg what scraps of knowledge and power they could from their tables. Their passivity and lack of vision had always disgusted him. Even the mighty Balrogs had only been Melkor's slaves.

"Enough," Vaire called, silencing them with a slender hand. "Let our brother speak."

 _Yes, we're just one big happy family, aren't we?_ Sauron thought bitterly, and forced himself to nod respectfully.

"Brothers and sisters," he began without inflection, watching the surrounding spirits with a trained eye. Smoldering rage, bitter grief, and some undercurrent he couldn't quite identify. Contempt, perhaps? It was all to be expected.

"When I said that I had done nothing wrong, I fear that you may have mistook my meaning. I misspoke, and for that I apologize. I have made mistakes, and the greatest among them was following Melkor."

That got a reaction. Surprise, confusion, a flickering of hope and relief tempered by wariness. Good.

"I won't trouble you with the promises he made to me, but suffice to say he wasn't able to keep them. In retrospect, he probably never intended to." He turned to Aule, who refused to meet his eyes. His wife, Yavanna the Earth-Queen, glared at him venomously as she held his former mentor's hand in support. Sauron suppressed the temptation to glare back; he'd never gotten along with that tree-loving harpy.

"Master Aule, you taught me more than Melkor ever could have, and I have regretted my betrayal of you countless times these past three Ages. My time under him was utterly miserable, and not a day went by that I did not miss the warmth of your forges."

The Smith looked down at him with wide eyes, and moisture welled at their corners. "Mairon," he said softly.

Sauron felt a surge of comforting nostalgia at the sound of his original name. It had been so long since someone had called him that; it brought back a great many distracting memories.

He mentally shook himself. _Go away, feelings! I'm trying to be manipulative here!_

"For one thing, you knew what the hell you were doing. You had clear, realistic goals for your projects and well thought out plans to complete them. Melkor, on the other hand, was horrifyingly scatter-brained with the attention span of a caffeinated hummingbird. He flitted from one ridiculous scheme to another, each more impractical and convoluted than the last, and yet I was expected to make them all work flawlessly! I can assure you that none of the nonsense that took place in the First Age was my idea, and that I saw it through only under great duress."

Something was wrong, he could feel the eyes around him hardening. Did they feel nothing for his plight?

"That is why you regret serving Melkor? Because he had poor management skills?" Manwe asked with heated incredulity.

Sauron blinked. "Of course. His methods were horribly inefficient; I could list half a dozen ways he could have wrested control of Middle-earth in half the time with a quarter of the losses! Hell, I implemented some of them myself later on."

Angry mumbling broke out amongst the throngs of Maiar, and the enthroned Valar traded hard, tired glances.

One of his brethren spoke up in a low but furious voice. "Was it efficiency that prompted you to have Finrod and his companions mauled to death by werewolves?!" He turned to see Eonwe, Manwe's herald, staring at him with thunderclouds in his eyes.

Sauron frowned. "That is unfair. That pretender king and his pet hobo Beren slew my faithful servants and snuck into my stronghold under false guise, and I won our duel fair and square. Besides, my Gaurhoth were hungry, and I hate letting corpses go to waste."

Eonwe recoiled with disgust for some reason, and barked back a retort. "A stronghold which you had stolen from him!"

Sauron rolled his eyes. "Please. I didn't steal that tower, I _conquered_ it. Conquest is an old, established right. The precedents I could show you!"

Eonwe fumed, but Manwe stayed him with a raised hand. "Enough. He has had millennia to rationalize his deeds to himself." He turned back to Sauron. "You have not yet explained how any of your actions were in the best interests of anyone but yourself. What of after Melkor's defeat? If you so loathed serving him, why did you not sue for pardon and return to us as a number of your fellows did?"

"I am glad you asked, Elder King," Sauron replied confidently. "The reason I did not 'sue for pardon', as you put it, was because I saw what needed to be done, but was no longer confident in your willingness to do it. And sure enough, you did nothing."

There was a moment of stunned silence before the smoldering anger of the assembled Maiar was kindled into wrath. Tulkas and Orome made to leap to their feet, restrained only by their wives' soft words. Namo continued to watch him silently. Listening. Judging. Sauron felt a chill run down his spine.

Manwe's eyes flashed with a blue light, and a clap of thunder shook the earth. "Silence," he said, refusing to raise his voice. There was no need to; his voice was Father's voice, and none dared to raise their own against it. "Judgement approaches. The prisoner may say what he will, ere it comes." Namo, Master of Doom, waited silently by his side, a raven circling in the storm's shadow.

Sauron fought the urge to swallow nervously. _I'm running out of time,_ he thought. _I have to make this good._

"When you defeated Melkor once and for all and sank the entire Beleriand subcontinent in the process, you left Middle-Earth in shambles! True, you were quick enough to shepherd your precious elves to safety, and even granted a fertile and prosperous island to that handful of Men who had managed to gain your favor. But what of those you left behind?"

He spread his hands emphatically. "Without proper supervision, the Children ran amok! Languages changed and evolved, cultures splintered and mutated, kingdoms rose and fell overnight! It was chaos!"

Sauron clenched his hands into tight, tight fists at the memory of such mayhem. Such _untidiness._

"The world was becoming _unpredictable_! It needed to be _managed_! None of you were willing to get involved, to do what needed to be done."

Sauron smiled triumphantly, and his broken spirit blazed with joy at the memory of victory, of law and order.

"But I was! It was I who destroyed the cancer of Numenor, freeing the world from the tyranny of Mortal rule. It was I who tutored and shepherded Man, uniting their squabbling nations under my banner. Tempering them, refining them, bringing out their full untapped potential! It was I who revealed the truth that has evaded you for so long; that the Incarnate races cannot truly flourish if they are allowed free will."

His joy faded, swallowed by a bitter, desperate frustration.

"In the end, it was the elves who disappointed me. They proved intractable in their arrogance, remembering well their shameful history of madness and rebellion. They repaid my goodwill with treachery, and if they had just used the Rings I'd given them instead of making their own, using my designs without permission I might add, then everything would have been fine!"

He took in the faces of those around him; most of them didn't seem nearly as angry as they had been before. He felt a surge of hope; they were starting to see sense! Their once furious eyes were wide with shock, confusion and…wait, was that pity?! THAT WAS PITY!

Sauron fumed at the injustice of it all. They weren't looking at him like the tragic hero he was, one who had thanklessly sacrificed everything for the greater good. No, they gawked at him like their favorite hound had become rabid and was eating its own legs.

It was Ulmo, the normally taciturn Lord of Waters, who broke the stretching silence with a heavy sigh, sending a salty breeze across the gathering. "Sophistry aside, this explains a lot," he muttered to himself.

Nienna choked back a sob. "Oh Mairon," she said quietly. "You don't understand at all. You never truly did, did you?"

Sauron looked around, baffled and suddenly afraid. "What? No, it is you who do not-," he began with panicked frustration. His defense had been perfect, airtight. What was going on!?

"It's my fault," Aule professed wearily with his face in his hands, cutting him off. "I was too caught up in my work, and too blinded by his talent and potential. I should have seen it, seen that he needed help."

"None of us did, husband. Only Father is omnipotent," Yavanna comforted him, taking his hand again.

"Melkor saw it," Manwe said gravely. "And he used it as only he could. Yes, much is now clear." His shoulders slumped a little, and for a brief moment all the cares of the world could be seen in the lines of the Elder King's face. He shook his head slowly, and the moment passed. He turned his carefully dispassionate gaze to Sauron, shackled within the Ring of Doom.

"The prisoner has spoken," he said flatly. "He has shown no remorse for his sins, nor the pain and ruin they have wrought upon Middle-Earth, and upon all of Arda."

Sauron said nothing, paralyzed with sudden, frigid dread.

The Elder King nodded slowly, decisively to the Judge at his side.

Namo stood.

His voice was not a sound so much as a force, as absolute and inescapable as gravity.

"The Doom of Mairon called Sauron is thus: exile. Thou shalt leave the Circles of Arda, and never return hence until all is fulfilled unto the will of our Father, Eru Iluvatar." The world seemed to shift at the most sacred of names, and Sauron felt his legs crumple beneath him.

Namo slowly sat back down, and Manwe rose next to him to address the assembly. "Judgement has been given. So may it be."

"So may it be," echoed the gathered spirits, as they began to vanish one by one into the ether.

"Irmo, step forward, dear brother."

The hitherto silent Lord of Dreams rose from his great seat and approached the center of the Ring, and through a thickening cloud of despair Sauron felt the Vala's presence at his side.

"I have put your request before Father, and He has granted it with His blessings. I leave the prisoner in your hands; go in peace." With one last glance, the Elder King was gone, and Sauron was alone in the Mahanaxar with Irmo.

Even in his stupor, Sauron found this highly irregular. He had expected Tulkas to be the one to shove him out the Doors of Night, and indeed it seemed highly unlikely that he would allow anything short of Father's intervention to deny him the satisfaction. Yet it seemed that just such an intervention had taken place, at the request of…Irmo?

"You?! What did I do to cross _you?_ " Sauron asked, flabbergasted. He could scarcely conceive how such a thing was possible, much less recall anything he might have done to earn the Dreamlord's ire. The Vala was difficult to offend, and his sphere of control nearly impossible to intrude upon.

Yet somehow, _somehow_ Sauron had managed to upset him _so much_ that Irmo had clashed with his much more assertive brothers for the dubious honor of disposing of him, going so far as to go over all of their heads to Father Himself in the process.

 _Wait,_ Sauron had a sudden thought. _Irmo also rules over visions and omens. But that was thousands of years ago! Surely, he can't still be angry about…_

The Vala put a hand _very_ firmly on his shoulder and began to lead him away from the Mahanaxar. Travelling as unclad spirits, without physical forms, they passed swiftly west over the green fields and pristine forests of the Blessed Realm. Towards the Walls of Night. Sauron cringed.

"Is this about when I made what's-his-name hallucinate about his dead wife so he would tell me where his friends were hiding? That was _one time_!" the fallen Maia whined.

"Gorlim," Irmo replied softly but rather tersely. "His name was Gorlim. And yes, I am still angry, but that was not why I requested to preside over your banishment. In fact, I only did so on behalf of another. If you feel the need, you may ask him yourself."

Sauron abruptly felt another presence join them, and he took in its character. He felt the brush of coarse damp wool and smelt the fragrant smoke of some strange herb. A warm basso voice reached him across the wind.

" _The road goes ever on and on…_ " it sang contentedly.

A form coalesced beside them in a rush of soft light, an ancient yet spry-looking Man in robes of undyed linen, his long beard and hair white as fresh snow. He leaned casually on a plain staff of pale wood and smiled at them, deep laugh lines creasing his weathered face.

Sauron felt a surge of rancid, blistering hate at the sight of him, and crimson rage seeped through the cracks of his crippled spirit like molten lava.

"And so the puppet-master reveals himself," he spat venomously. "You look ridiculous, Olorin. How long do you intend to mock me by clinging to that decrepit shell?"

The old man quirked a bushy eyebrow. "I would never presume to mock you, brother, not when you so excel at making a fool of yourself without my help." He stretched wearily, and Sauron twitched at the disconcerting cracking noises the motion produced.

"This form may have its challenges, but I've grown rather attached to it over the last few millennia," confided the old man as he rubbed the small of his back ruefully. "And please, call me Gandalf. All of my friends do nowadays."

Sauron glowered. "How interesting. I had not been informed that we were friends. Perhaps I should check my mail."

"We were friends once, were we not? Before you turned?" Gandalf asked quietly. "Can we not at least be cordial in the time we have left together, for old time's sake?"

"Please, we were acquaintances at best. More to the point, friends don't destroy friend's industrial utopias, _Gandalf_."

The former wizard rolled his eyes. "Really, Mairon? Really? You ordered numerous genocides, committed countless environmental atrocities, and enslaved two continents for thousands of years while pursuing a third."

"Slavery is so gauche. I prefer the term, 'societal optimization'." Sauron said primly.

Gandalf closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes. Yes, you would, wouldn't you? And therein lies the problem."

"We are here," interrupted Irmo, having ignored their exchange with his usual placidity.

With what was _definitely not_ near catatonic terror, Sauron extended his senses back into the physical world. What he saw was far more disturbing than he had anticipated.

"What fresh hell is this?" he whispered.

Rather than the bleak, barren shore of a lifeless monochrome ocean, he found himself standing knee-deep in the soft grass of a rather pleasant meadow. Wildflowers grew in abundance among a scattering of limestone boulders, lupins and periwinkles in cool shades of violet and blue.

Gone were the grim pair of dull, black needles of obsidian and unknowable metal between which the invisible fabric of Creation simply _ceased_ , and all was swallowed by an infinite abyss of oblivion empty of all but one's own self-loathing and the dubious company of what most were pleased to call The Great Enemy.

Rather, the center of the meadow was occupied by a rather handsome oak tree, its leaves stirred faintly by a cool breeze descending from distant snow-capped mountains. The air was thick with the smell of lavender and sweet clover. Sauron sneezed rather violently.

"I'll admit that it's been quite a while," he muttered, squinting his eyes as if to peer past a desert mirage. "But I personally remember the Gates of Night being marginally less… _pastoral._ "

This insight seemed to somewhat alarm Gandalf, while Irmo silently marched him toward the oak, which was beginning to look decidedly hostileto Sauron's eyes _._

"The Gates of Night?! Merciful Father, is that where you thought we were taking you?" the former wizard exclaimed with what could almost be mistaken as concern. Sauron shrugged helplessly in Irmo's grasp.

"Well, 'banishment from the Circles of the World' can only be taken a certain number of ways, right? And it isn't as if my situation doesn't have a rather _conspicuous_ precedent," he replied dryly.

Gandalf gave him a cold far-away look, and Sauron was surprised by how difficult it was to meet the pain in his eyes. "Mairon, you are responsible for inflicting an unspeakable amount of death and suffering upon the people of Middle-earth, many of whom I deeply loved. You may never truly understand how much pain and horror that you wrought upon the world, and for that I am not sure that I will ever forgive you."

He took a deep breath, sighed slowly and heavily, and when he met Sauron's eyes again it seemed to him that the moment had passed.

"Be that as it may, I would never be so vindictive as to petition Father for the right to personally cast you through the Gates," Gandalf continued evenly. "I am not you, Mairon, and you are not Melkor. Not even you deserve such a fate."

Sauron really didn't know how to take this. "But my Doom said that I would leave the Circles of the World-."

"Your Doom said that you would have to leave the Circles of _Arda,_ " Gandalf corrected him patiently. "There is an appreciable difference."

There was a rather pregnant pause.

"….What."

Gandalf quirked an amused eyebrow at Sauron's expression. "You're confused? I suppose that makes sense. You were off playing Junior Dark Lord when the rest of us were briefed on this. Suffice to say, while Arda _is_ The World, it isn't the only _world_." The Istari stroked his beard pensively. "Or, well, it used to be. And in a way it still is. Kind of. Except, not really."

Sauron stared at him.

"…What."

Irmo rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Olorin my beloved student, you have many talents, but teaching is not among them. Sit down and I shall explain."

The Dreamlord pushed Sauron gently toward the broad trunk of the oak tree, and appeared entirely unconcerned when his prisoner tripped over a root and landed face-first in a patch of honeysuckle.

"Essentially," he began. "When Father first had us Sing the universe into existence, we initially created only Arda, the World, encircled within the sphere of Ea, That Which Is. That single-"

"That single beautiful point of Being within the infinite nothingness of the Void, etcetera, etcetera," Sauron interrupted crossly, returning to his senses now. "Yes, I remember. I was there too, if you recall."

One of Irmo's eyes may have twitched slightly. "You were, and I do. But what none of us knew at the time, save for Father obviously, was that the Music continued to ripple and echo across the Void long after it was performed. And though these echoes became more and more distorted as time went on, they always retained aspects of the original Music, as did the worlds that developed from them."

The Vala quirked a little half-smile and gestured at the boughs of the tree above them. "Much like an oak tree dropping acorns that never grow in quite the same way."

Sauron sat at the base of the oak and leaned against its broad trunk, idly picking apart blades of the long grass with his fingers as he digested this information. He frowned.

"Did you drag me all the way out here just so you could make that analogy?" he asked.

Gandalf's eyes twinkled in amusement. "Partly. The other reason is that this place is as isolated as it is pleasant, and as such it is unlikely that anyone will interrupt or interfere with what we came here to do."

 _Well, that sounds ridiculously ominous._ Sauron began surreptitiously feeling around for a sharp rock, but unfortunately was only able to find a handful of delectable looking mushrooms.

"Aaaaaaand what would that be, exactly?" drawled Sauron, stalling for time amidst his own increasingly outlandish and panicked conjecture.

"Why, carrying out your sentence, of course."

 _My spies weren't exaggerating when they described him as 'unconscionably cryptic',_ thought Sauron, more frustrated than terrified now. _It's enough to make me feel bad about executing them._

Irmo glared at Gandalf and huffed with annoyance.

"Really? Very well then, I will be the adult here," he said.

He turned a level gaze to Sauron. "Certain parties are convinced, given your circumstances, that imprisoning you in the Void for all eternity is too severe a punishment."

Irmo jerked his head to the Istar next to him. "Those parties being Father and Olorin here, literally no one else. Personally, I would gladly slam the Gates of Night on your sorry ass myself if given half the chance."

Sauron schooled his expression to one of calm compliance, inwardly shocked by this uncharacteristic display of vitriol from the normally sedate Vala.

 _Damn, and I thought I could carry a grudge. It's always the quiet ones, isn't it?_

Sauron would know, he had _been_ one of the quiet ones.

He turned to Gandalf, silently resolving to cling to his unlikely advocate for dear life.

"And what circumstances are those?" Sauron asked innocently.

"Namely that you, through no fault of your own, are a psychopath," said Gandalf, not unkindly.

Sauron bristled and gave him an injured look. _Slander and calumny!_

"How DARE you!" he hissed. "You can make any justifications you need to about working against me. You can call me evil, cruel and more besides. But I am not MAD! I am the most logical, intelligent person I know!"

He jabbed a wispy finger toward his captors. "Stop rolling your eyes, damn you! And weren't you just saying that I wasn't like Melkor?"

"I stand by that statement," said Gandalf. "Melkor is a nihilistic sociopath, his issues are completely different from yours. But the important part is that he forged his own path into darkness, and has no one to blame for his sins but his own baseless jealousy and spite."

His eyes met Sauron's again, and they were once more filled with that same disgusting, infuriating pity.

"You, on the other hand, were tempted down your path, coerced and manipulated while at your most vulnerable," Gandalf continued sadly. "In some ways, you are a greater victim of Melkor's machinations than nearly anyone else."

"I resent your implications and deny them profusely," responded Sauron evenly, his mind racing to analyze where this conversation was going. _What the hell is your game here, Olorin?_

"Melkor possessed neither the skill nor the intellectual capacity to manipulate _me_ ; if you had known him like I did, you would understand. Moreover I cannot recall, in all of my millennia, ever being in a situation where I would describe myself as _vulnerable_."

"I seem to recall an incident with an elven princess and a talking wolfhound " interjected Irmo.

Sauron stiffened and reflexively clutched at the ancient white scars circling his throat.

"That was an intentional omission, thank you, and not remotely relevant to this conversation." Sauron hated dogs; he still had the occasional panic attack.

"Do you recall the circumstances under which your acquaintance with Melkor began?" Gandalf asked patiently, not missing a beat.

Sauron had to ponder this for a minute; that was not a part of his life that he had given any thought to for a long, long time.

"I was alone in one of Aule's workshops, laboring on one of my projects long after everyone else had left."

"Where had everyone else gone?" asked Gandalf mildly.

Sauron shrugged. "Damned if I know, some festival or another. In any case, I was "

"Why did you not join them?" asked Irmo. "It must have been a fairly major event if all of them decided to drop their projects in order to attend."

Sauron glared at him for this meaningless interruption. "That is a stupid question. I am a craftsman. I was working. What could possibly be worth delaying my progress for? Besides, it wasn't as if they had invited me along. They knew I would refuse, and Aule had instructed them not to bother me." Gandalf and Irmo exchanged a significant look.

"I think I understand," said Gandalf wearily. "Indulge me, if you would, as I try to predict what happened next."

Sauron waved him on impatiently. "Whatever," he snapped. "I'm in no position to deny you your games."

"I imagine that, before this encounter, Melkor would at times come in to discretely observe you working at a respectful distance, saying nothing and being as unobtrusive as possible. As such, you and everyone else had become accustomed to his presence in the forges and workshops, finding nothing unusual about him being there whenever it suited him," Gandalf began.

"Yes, but that was common knowledge," Sauron confirmed indifferently. "Though his presence never caused problems, Aule did not like having him around and was not shy about complaining about it in public."

Gandalf nodded slowly. "But Melkor did not keep his silence in the workshop that day, did he?"

Sauron shook his head, his brow furrowed in recollection. "Apparently he had overheard an argument between Aule and myself earlier. I had requested some rare materials for my project, and Aule had refused me with some worthless excuse about 'extreme risks to public health'. Melkor offered to change his mind."

He chuckled at the memory. "The next day, I arrived to find the materials I wanted neatly piled in a lead box on my workstation. Apparently, Aule had spent most of the previous day's festival being berated by everyone and sundry for 'neglecting his students'. I later asked Melkor how he did it, and he offered to teach me in return for a few favors."

"And it was only a matter of escalation from there," Gandalf muttered pensively, stroking his beard. "Yes, that adds up nicely."

A contemplative silence fell for a few moments, or rather it would have if Sauron hadn't begun loudly tapping his foot almost immediately.

Gandalf met the former Dark Lord's eyes slowly, patiently.

"I don't suppose you would care to share your insights with the rest of the class?" Sauron asked primly. There was a sudden snorting noise, and both Maiar turned in surprise to look at Irmo. The Vala had the sleeve of his robe over his mouth and was doing a poor job of imitating a coughing fit.

After a moment, the Dreamlord recovered his aloof, regal bearing and stared at them placidly, as if daring them to make something of his outburst. His juniors elected the path of discretion.

"What I mean to say," Gandalf replied evenly, "is that much of your behavior these past Ages can be explained by the fact that, for a very long and formative period of time, nearly all of your positive social interactions were with Melkor."

He met Sauron's eyes with a piercing blue stare, and held out his hands emphatically. " _Melkor."_

Sauron's retort froze on his lips. He felt his insides grow cold for a few, agonizing moments. Melkor was _no one_ 's idea of normal. He had seen that hollow, infantile madness up close many, many times. Could he have been tainted by it, all those eons ago?

Yet logic prevailed, and he scoffed at the idea. "Really? Just like that, I'm supposed to be some sort of emotionally-stunted, socially inept basket case? My political career would beg to differ."

Gandalf and Irmo traded a look.

"Your words, not ours," the former Wizard replied demurely. "I was going to say that you are almost completely unable to form meaningful relationships or engage in social interaction outside the context of manipulation and power games."

Irmo cut in. "You are also an obsessive-compulsive egomaniac whose delusions and tunnel vision border on self-destructive. Not to mention that your sense of empathy is so microscopic that you barely qualify as sentient."

"Harsh, but true," Gandalf agreed ruefully. "You have a long way to go, Mairon."

The meadow was quiet. Sauron reflected on their words, pondering them with all his might.

And then he laughed. Hysterically, contemptuously. He laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

"Is _that_ what this is all about?" he finally wheezed. "You're trying to _redeem_ me?!"

"I feel a more accurate term would be 'salvage', but yes, that is the plan," said Irmo.

 _Deluded fools_ , Sauron thought smugly. _You can't fix what isn't broken._

"And who shall be my would-be counselor?" he sneered. "You, Olorin? Going to put that famous wisdom and patience to use?"

Gandalf clicked his tongue. "Heavens, no. Not even I have what it takes to deal with you long-term; no one in Arda does. Which is why we're sending you to some 'specialists'."

Sauron kept sniggering. "You're actually doing this? You're sending me to another world? For _therapy_?"

"We won't force you, of course. We are simply giving you a choice," Irmo assured him with a small, frosty smile. "You can either live out the rest of Time somewhere pleasant where you can do no harm and might actually learn something-"

The Vala's eyes glowed with a harsh green light. "Or you can spend eternity in the Void. _Alone._ With _Melkor._ "

Sauron's eye twitched.

"Therapy World it is," he said. "Now, how are we going to do this?"

"Just close your eyes and lie down," Gandalf said with a triumphant grin. "Lord Irmo will send your spirit down the Path of Dreams until you reach your destination."

He patted the former Dark Lord on the back. "Cheer up, will you? If everything works out, maybe Father will let you return when the world is renewed at the end of time."

Sauron scoffed at this false comfort, but did as he was told.

"Just don't make me wear pastels or write poetry," Sauron begged reluctantly as he closed his eyes.

"I make no promises," he heard Irmo say.

And then he knew no more.

A/N: Thanks for reading! This fic marks the beginning of my "Reforged" series and is continued in Reforged: Tyranny is Magic. 

I would like to thank my friend AkaiNeko for his help and encouragement; this fic would not have happened without him. 

Leave a review below if it suits you, and I will do my best to reply. See you next time!


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